Saturday, February 18, 2006

The guest critics/bloggers are all still working on their prediction charts, but the Oscar Symposium is otherwise a wrap. You can read their emotionally fluttery and/or bawling acceptance speeches, thoughts about Oscar's show length and technical standoffish, and Jon Stewart as host as we wrap up the meeting of minds on Day Four.

8 comments:

Loved the symposium Nathaniel! If I may, my answers to the four last points would have been:

1. Jon Stewart is going to be funny, but not terrificly funny-I wish they'd go back to Steve Martin or Billy Crystal to be honest (who do you think out of those two, if either, will take home a trophy someday)?

2. Fire Gil Cates-this is my one chance a year to see what people like Sandy Powell and Gustavo Santaolalla look like!

Yes, thanks for organising, and thanks to all of the contributors who have, well, contributed over the past few days. ENCORE!

My personal favourite wordplay (from many) was this from Nick:

"I think Annette Bening, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Imelda Staunton, and Kate Winslet will get together for an Oscar night of daiquiris and nibbles, and collectively scream, "Not only were we ALL better than last year's winner, but even SHE was better than ALL of this year's nominees! So where are our Oscars? Where the fuck is the justice???"

Not only was I howling with laughter, but also mentally gatecrashing the party.

I too feel that an Amy Adams win could seriously happen (she could "do a Marcia Gay Harden", so to speak, and thank voters "for taking the time to view the tape"), but that SAG loss just stops me from predicting her. Like MGH, getting into the race was the hard part, because then one has to figure the voters will check out the work. So either SAG voters didn't do their homework, OR they just don't dig on the performance enough to beat out Weisz.

In fact, Oscars are so predictable I would like to commend you my list for 2007 (yes, that early!!)I am a dreamer, so I dreamt the magnificent Wong kar-wai reaches 2006 with his latest project (without Nicole, you know, she's so busy!!)and gets his first bona fide commercial hit in USA!!On the other hand, David Fincher painfully regrets directing Black Dahlia, which earns the fifh slot in spite of Fincher's own Zodiac, and marks the great return of Hollywood's missing "Coppolito", Brian De Palma.

Ok, Here I go:

BEST PICTUREThe Black Dahlia The Good German Little ChildrenThe Lady From ShangaiMarie Antoinette

BEST DIRECTOR Brian De Palma, The Black Dahlia Sofia Coppola, Marie AntoinetteDavid Fincher, ZodiacSteven Soderbergh, The Good GermanWong kar-wai, The Lady From Shangai

BEST ACTORJavier Bardem, Goya’s GhostsGeorge Clooney, The Good GermanRobert Downey Jr., ZodiacMatt Damon, The Good ShepherdSean Penn, All The King’s Men